@Sir_Ivissia I hear you. How would you respond to this thought experiment…a billionaire starts a company that gives all 500 employees 0.1% ownership & profit-sharing (in addition to a livable wage) while he keeps the other 50%.

Is the billionaire evil/greedy? Has he really done nothing to make the world a little better place?

@Sir_Ivissia and if nothing else, would you not concede this is proof that not all rich people are rotten to the core?

https://www.patagonia.com/ownership/

Interesting scenario and I'm thinking on it. A detailed reply will take a while - it's early evening here so have to do the family stuff (Promised I'd walk one of the kids through their algebra homework tonight. I fucking hate algebra!)

OK. Finally back. Pretty sure she was playing dumb to delay bedtime!

Now, this looks good on the surface. Certainly will get the billionaire credit, and the 500 employees seem to be doing well out of the deal. Everyone's happy, everyone wins, right? Not giving him credit for not being evil by giving a living wage - that should quite simply be expected from every employer. The fact that it isn't is a more damning indictment on modern society than almost anything else.

I have questions.

Where'd the billionaire's cash come from? If he has (as a topical example) made a serious wedge developing and selling electric cars and this profit sharing company makes home electric car chargers ... that would change the optics significantly, wouldn't it.

At 50% the billionaire still has total control of the direction of the company. Doesn't matter that every worker has a say - all you need is one of them thinking "Well, the guy's rich, he obviously knows what is best, I'll vote with him" for him to run the company as he wishes. You know very well that such thinking is common enough to be guaranteed.

The whole concept of profit sharing is fun when you start digging into it - who determines profit? The billionaire is once again totally fine if there is no profit on paper - his tax write-offs guarantee that - but the workers don't do so well.

Finally, what happens when (not if) the billionaire decides to divest his interest? This is what destroys most profit sharing collectives already, so unless there's an absolutely ironclad winddown period where the billionaire gets paid off and the company moves to totally worker owned, the sharks will move in and strip the joint. (Cynicism and previous experience tell me that if there is an ironclad winddown, the sharks are merely delayed. But that is just my experience).

So I've going to provisionally say in your thought experiment the billionaire is still greedy. He gets a provisional rating of "Not actively evil" as well, based on information provided. Which is praise so faint that the noise of a falling feather drowns it out.

As far as the example you provided goes - it provisionally looks good, sans a decent dig which I've not had time for. There will always be exceptions, people being what they are.

I enjoyed this. It is always good (albeit sometimes uncomfortable) to sit and clarify my thoughts by explaining them to someone else. Thank you!

@Sir_Ivissia Thx for sharing...

I'm in agreement that in this thought experiment the billionaire shouldn't be called a hero. A livable wage should be the bare minimum expectation if you have employees.

But consider that the billionaire could have just as easily bought an island and lived his life as a hermit, giving nothing to nobody. Would he be more or less virtuous if he had never invested/formed the company in the first place?

To me it seems that there's at least some economic good here that's benefitting more than just the billionaire.

Except if he buys an island, he's not giving nothing to nobody. He's got to get to his island - that's a private jet at minimum, or a shipyard getting yacht contract (in all honesty it's both), plus the construction workers needed to build and maintain the necessary infrastructure. Dude's going to have staff there, he's not going to do the gardening himself - that's a bunch of families directly benefitting. There's the local boat owner that delivers supplies - his crew are now guaranteed to be fed.
There isn't a lot of difference - other than the guy on his island gets no praise.